Reality check

For the last 15 years, Big Oil and King Coal have been working overtime to stifle and obscure the implacable truth about climate change. They have endless resources of money, and plenty of people in politics and the mass media (even three or four scientists) willing to take it, provided they tow the carbon lobby line. They have cash and influence, but the one thing that's against them is this: reality.
Next month there's a rare opportunity to get the full, clear unvarnished truth about what we face, and when. The good news: climate change can be slowed, and eventually halted. It is not too late. The bad news: time is running out. Fast.

Wherever you are, whatever your age: watch the video, spread the word, donate your Facebook and Twitter accounts for the event, and get involved. Because, unfortunately for all of us, this matters.

Mozart's Last Aria

Matt Rees is one of the most stylish crime writers around at the moment, and his latest novel has just been published in the UK (the US edition will be out in November). In the past, Matt's work has all been set in the contemporary Middle East, where he lives. This time he's taken a journey back to 18th century Vienna and to the mystery surrounding the death of Mozart. (If you think Salieri did it, think again.) Where many historical novelists are concerned, this would be a cue for endless descriptions of fashion or lots of painfully anachronistic dialogue: the kind that always reminds me of a bad school play. Fortunately Matt is of the hard-boiled school of writing: he does his research, and makes every word count. So that's my summer holiday reading sorted.

Here's the rather gorgeous trailer...

And here's the long version. Wonderful  music .... but then, it is Mozart!

The Einstein girl in Poland

The Polish translation of The Einstein Girl was published last month, with this rather elegant (and historically authentic) cover. The title in Polish is actually The Einstein Case, because to translate the original title word-for-word produces something indistinguishable from Einstein’s Girlfriend – which is definitely not what was intended. My polish publishers, Książnice, originally suggested Einstein’s Daughter, but for me that was too on-the-nose – as well as being the title of a non-fiction book published a few years ago in America.

In terms of the number of titles published, Poland has been my most faithful market to date. In all, seven out of eight of my books have been published there. That’s more even than the UK. Perhaps there is some faint Slavic strain running through my prose ... or maybe that's just the luck of the draw!

Should maths be taught in our schools?

It's about time this thorny issue was properly and openly debated, just as it is here. The egg-heads in their ivory towers have had us in their thrall for too long...



Now watch the real thing... Can you spot the difference?



The contest was won by Miss California, a self-confessed 'science geek'. So there is hope.

When brains freeze over...

If you thought the video I posted earlier this month exaggerated the failings of the mainstream media to get science stories even remotely right, just take a look at the latest nonsense running in print and (especially) on-line about the coming 'mini ice age'.
Below, this media fabrication is admirably dissected by an ex-New Scientist editor known as 'Potholer'. When it comes to stories about climate, I'm afraid, the kind of pig-headed idiocy he examines here is absolutely par for the course.

A culture of gullibility?

Did you know that if you leave a tooth in a glass of Coca-Cola overnight it doesn't dissolve? No, neither did I. This excellent video, the first in a series, demonstrates how silly 'scientific' claims are now swiftly disseminated via the Internet - and how to spot them without the need for a PhD...

Laughing all the way to the bank?

Richard Lewinsohn's near-contemporary analysis of the 1929 Wall Street crash - a classic account that nobody interested in economic history or economic theory should miss - has recently been translated into English by Peter Bild. (Amazon link http://www.amazon.com/Financial-Contagion-Lessons-Great-Depression/dp/1446136426). At the back there are some rather witty verses on our own 21st century financial crisis, penned by the translator. With his kind permission, I append this exclusive extract:

Rhymes for our Times
(Dead and buried, out of fashion,

Sodden Ogden’s teeth are Nashn’)

Three years since the fall of Lehman.

Politicians still are schemin’.

Printing cash for junking clunkers.

Hunkered down in marbled bunkers,

Bankers, what’s your latest news?

No more blues, just one more ruse

To use the cash you can’t refuse:

Taxpayers’ cash, let’s call it  TARP -

That’s what makes you rich and sharp.

A year along, your bank seems strong.

Nothing that you did seems wrong.

You’re a banker: and you hanker

For a margin without rancour.

Don‘t treat me like a trading chip.

So get a grip before we slip

Into a bubbly double dip.

Now masters of the universe

Tell me please, what could be worse
Than bankers heading for a fall.

Let them grovel, let them crawl!
Schadenfreude? Not at all!

Hear the honest realtor.

Buy a home! Buy three or four!

Soon they will be worth much more.

You’re the broker who espouses

That’s what borrowed money’s for.

Why, the market’s safe as houses.

And should you feel acquisitive

Then buy my new derivative.

Indisputably financial,

It makes trades more influential,

And your profits exponential.

That’s how you fulfil potential:

Trading on the differential.

You’re so smart, well who’d have thought it?

Sold some stock before you bought it.
Savvy bears just love to short it,

Leaving markets all distorted.

Though it’s rarely well reported,

That is how, with falling prices

You make money from the crisis.

Lions of the money jungle

Brainy bankers never bungle.

But I’m uncouth, a simple youth,

I’m telling you the naked truth:

(The sort of truth a banker loathes)

The Emperor-banker’s got no clothes!

I’m with Warren: in the Buff- it

Is low tide! No time to bluff it.

When you signed that trading chitty

Did you grasp the nitty gritty?

No you didn’t, more’s the pity.

In New York or London City,

Alter-ids of Walter Mitty

Think this ditty’s pretty shitty.

For, when traders tell their bosses,

Those weren’t profits, those were losses,
Other folks will bear the onus.

You make sure you keep your bonus,
Those  fine champagnes can addle brains.

With your ill-begotten gains.

Lots of loot down lots of drains.

Where wert thou, John Maynard Keynes?

Some banks trembled, others crumbled

Arrogant until they tumbled.

Some believe they should be humbled

Jumbled on a victims tumbril.

Regulators Messrs Bumble

Fiscal fingers all a-fumble

Mumble, but they rarely rumble

In advance before you stumble.

Afterwards, they merely grumble.

After all that speculation.

For the banks: Administration?
Bottom line defenestration?

Too big to fail, resuscitation.
Main Street, meanwhile, feels frustration 

Suffering in desperation
From financial constipation.

Who picks up the tab? The nation!

Somewhere, there must be a trade-off

For the money Bernie Madoff.

Now here’s a twist you may have missed.

The rating agencies insist,

Like the alchemists of old,

This ain’t sub-prime shit. It’s GOLD!

Care-packaged in the USA

These housing loans are A OKAY,
We’re PAID to rate them Triple A.

Wrapped up neat they look a treat,

As shysters on the New York street
Sell CDOs a dime a bunch.
“So find the lady, play your hunch.

And get one free." A sucker punch.
Please don’t fret if you don't get it.
Trust us bankers. Give us credit:
Credit for the credit crunch.

Meanwhile, please enjoy your lunch.

Hail to Henry Paulson. Hank!

Who came to Treasury from a bank,

Sheltered from financial blizzard,

As our ranking, banking wizard.

Hail to Hank whose banking wisdom
Sought to save the sinking system.
Was it greed? Or just stupidity,

Feeding on our mass cupidity,

To inject more cheap liquidity?

Now what’s it worth,  our glorious greenback?

90 cents that won’t be seen back.

Chinamen can hold our dollar.
When it falls, just hear them holler.

Let them work, while we just lean back.

And so with Wall Street’s contribution
Watch the dollar's dire dilution:

Uncle Sam wins absolution
For his post-war dissolution.
All in all, a neat solution.

B’fore the dollar, we all knelt down

Till it caused financial meltdown.